The Bromfield Story, or How One Farmer Came A-Cropper
The Bromfield Story, or How One Farmer Came A-Cropper Louis Bromfield—after a little stint down in the Department of Agriculture—has set himself up as an authority on American agriculture. Working...
...The public has not been kept in ignorance...
...Don't, however, expect' to see a big, black streamer—"EXPOSE SKULLDUGGERY OF BIG-BUSINESS IN WAR - CONTRACT FRAUD AND GRAFT...
...Newspaper publishers who had failed to get AM...
...The radio announcer in his news broadcasts was repeating the same editorial diatribes against Labor that the smalltown paper, owned by the same man, was carrying...
...Hoover Spurs Drive to Break Food Blockade A drive to break the blockade of Nazi-held Europe was spurred this week by a Herbert Hoover-dominated meeting at Carnegie Hall on February 20, called under the title of "Europe's Children—Must They Starve...
...An investigation by this writer revealed Mr...
...If he couldn't get newspaper space, he would try to get radio time...
...Apparently, this means eW the "Doctors' Trust" has woa ai fight to k«ep mt iieal care fcafJ millions ot Americans wha e»1 unable to meet its cost...
...The meeting itself, though, had a none-too-subtle anti-Britisb and anti-Roosevelt flavor...
...The case was broken by Lieut...
...But week after week an amazing amount of skullduggery on • the part of profit-mad American corporate interests is brought to light...
...But, in general, we are progressing...
...This was interpreted in many quarters as a kind of strike of capital against the regulation...
...Lieutenant General Brehon Somervell has the regular rank of colonel: air-force Brigadier General Lawton Kuter holds the regular rank of captain...
...The bandages were contaminated, and if used might have caused the death of wounded soldiers...
...The Navy is apparently not yet prepared to admit the service to all-comers as a vocation...
...No problem can be wholly solved during total war...
...As we all know, even retail outlets were manufacturers' selling agencies, not consumer purchasing agencies...
...Manas' Fishbein...
...In the last War there was a regular reduction of commissions at the end of hostilities...
...It makes incredible demands...
...Another angle was the persistent tendency of the large radio chains to tie up the smaller stations in long-winded contract* that forced the small stations to pipe in what the big chains were sending...
...John Cudahy, a leader in the appeasement bloc and former ambassador to Belgium...
...Farmers have too long had a labor "pool" of 6 idle men hanging over the pasture gate waiting for the farmer to give one of them 4 hours work next Thursday afternoon...
...The Cox Committee wil start its hearings soon...
...Another of those indicted, William Kullgren, is using the U. S. mails to plead his innocence via "America Speaks" a substitute for his previous "The Beacon Light...
...According to Alfred McClung Lee in his Defy Xenmpaper* in America, the number of cities with one daily newspaper rose from 353 in 1809 to 1,083 in 1937...
...A call to government officials, including President Roosevelt, "to take a forthright stand for true demoe-'' racy at home" was issued by the conference...
...Justice Holmes has called the "market places of thought...
...Thus the red and blue networks of NBC were ordered separated...
...both written by Joseph P. Kamp...
...Thousands of reprints of an article by Herbert Hoover on Relief for Europe, which appeared recently in Harpers, are being showered on many small-town editors and various publicists...
...We asked T. Swann Harding, Agriculture Dept...
...He had a two hour talk with me and dared risk his high office to challenge my persecutors...
...Only a little more than 100 cities have this "freedom of the press" of competing newspapers...
...troubled James L. Fly, social-minded head of the Federal Communications Commission...
...I couldn't give you the name, place and date of this little story offhand, but I'll wager it's happened time and again and in more than one or two places...
...the color ads told how great they were...
...Theyf unpatriotically refuse to work under Hie conditions that are inevitable in a Nation at total war...
...These same companies still dominate the newly-reorganized copper division of the War Production Board: eight companies are represented, and five of them are among those who pleaded guilty in court...
...While Labor receives no hearing in the press, criticism of corporations is stilled by the crushing weight of Big-Business propaganda...
...The tie-up of prees and radio worried him...
...SarnttJMfc they have wo\ \\ without fining* shot, since Secretary Perkins <W the administration will not natf* a contest...
...In these one-newspaper towns, this joint-ownership of press and radio becomes a dangerous menace, if uncontrolled...
...If the war were to end tomorrow, he might be called upon to doff his four stars for the silver oak leaf...
...Besides, thty are allowed to deduct this advertising from their corporation taxes...
...But planned production must' exist throughout the economy...
...Army It's nothing to get alarmed about, but the United States Army—is—not—the—Army of the United States...
...The radio chains, meanwhile, continued their appeasement role of the Congressional Tories and muzzled Winchell and Pearson when these commentators attempted to criticize Congressional maldoers...
...U. S. Bar Head Aids Indicted Pro-Fascist By WALTER K. LEWIS George Maurice Morris, President of the American Bar Association, has interested himself sufficiently in the case of C. Leon de Aryan of San Diego to furnish bail for this indicted pro-Fascist...
...Albert Palmer who has been mixed up with reactionary isolationist elements in Chicago...
...sent by the Nash Kelvinator people, which is blatant propaganda against any sort of social change...
...Neither industry nor agriculture has merit, except insofar as it efficiently provides the goods and services required by the pub-lie...
...His standing made me a good risk in the eyes of the broker...
...have won their flgi^'fc the United States...
...TNEC monographs) yapped about bureaucracy—and willing strident voices in Congress were ready to take up the cries, and did...
...But he got the same answer there that he had gotten across the street...
...It investigated newspaper-radio tie-ups...
...In Maryland an explosive concern (including three Washington "contract brokers," whose notoriety the press is strangely uninterested in) was indicted by a Federal Grand jury...
...In several months under Manpower-Commissioner Paul McNutt, it has been almost totally emasculated...
...There are many like him who repudiate the scientific revolution which has basically changed technology, society, and economics since McKinley's day...
...That case is now up before the Supreme Court in a suit brought by Columbia Broadcasting and the National Broadcasting Company...
...We have fumbled and bungled as democracies always do...
...AMAWnsF'tghtoi Health Insurance In Security Plans WASHINGTON, D. C. — « greatly expanded system of *> cial security win "shortly*' * submitted to Congress by P*a# dent Roosevelt, Secretary at t> bor Frances Perkins disdoWd last week...
...The sponsoring committee of the rally was a curious combination of reactionary isolationists and liberals, pro-Vichyites and Socialists...
...This is mechanized warfare...
...in the trade unions and place * story erring Labor's side of the matter about a bill in the state legislature which would virtually damp a union organwer in jail for two years if any disorder grew out of a labor dispute...
...I don't make any reservations in that statement...
...Bromfield and peo-'ple who think like him simply refuse to accept the environment of total war...
...A brief submitted by the American Civil Liberties Union excellently sums up the caw The union's brief centers around the principle that "the right to listen, which is for most people toil ay the significant sector of the right of tree speech, shall not be curtailed," and contends that the restrictive contracts between network and affiliated stations which the FCC rules seek to abolish, "effectively curtsS the freedom to listen by restricting the freedom of the stations to choose their program material.'' * * * Big Business A evert ises A NOTHER aspect of this problem has been ^* the intensive advertising com'.neted by large corporations, ostensibly to keep their names be-fore the public eye...
...The new Roosevelt 48-hour order still includes the provision that overtime pay is due for all work overx40 hours—and that's the rub...
...Seth Millikan...
...Harding's memorandum...
...The industrial and agricultural apparatus is simply a means to an end', the end being satisfactory functional methods of supplying consumer needs for goods and services in correct quantity, quality, grades, and sizes, at fair prices...
...And A. Philip Randolph, Negro spokesman, for one didn't pull any punches...
...while tBe splashy ads were telling of the marvelous tanks and planes, reports filtering back from the battlefronts cursed the boot performance of some of these planes and tanks...
...Newspapers over the country were dying like flies in the cold, while circulation was going up, and an overwhelming majority of towns were coming to have only one paper ae a source Of news...
...The broad gist of the matter is that Louis Bromfield speaks from a peacetime standpoint, which is fine at peace...
...Jones This Isn't the U.S...
...and to add another significant difference, no provision has as yet been made for the continuation of Reserve officers after the war...
...The man who stood up for me in the hour of need does not know- me from Adam...
...It could not plan...
...All promotions, however, are permanent...
...An eight page tabloid, Kullgren's newest endeavor is devoted mainly to the testimonials received from U. S. Senator Robert A. Taft and Representative Clare E. Hoffman in behalf of those indicted...
...And that is an episode more pregnant with dangers for democracy than the insidious pressures w"hich roped and hogtied Walter Winchell and Drew Pearson on their radio broadcasts recently...
...The large radio chains yammered about "government interference in the freedom of the air...
...de Aryan's fellow conspirator in the seditious case, Hermann Schwinn, was the signed author of the declaration...
...There are only so many arable acres...
...Morris as the man of "national standing" who had gone to bat for Mr...
...As a matter of fact Big-Business has almost threatened a sit-down strike...
...This does NOT mean that no mistakes have been made in Washington...
...And the FCC wem to work...
...Bromfield has always been known as a good storyteller, and his pieces on the crisis in agriculture had his usual fictional stamp In a time of total war against Fascism, Bromfield was writing as If in another far-away world, as if the American farmer were still back in the old-barefoot days...
...An entire refutation by fellow indictee, Hudson de Priest, of the seditious indictments is reprinted by Kullgren witH an editorial refutation of the charges by Kullgren himself, as well...
...In time you'll hear who he is...
...de Aryan boasted to friends in San Diego and Chicago that Mr...
...It was interested in more margin for profit...
...America First executive committeewoman...
...Several years ago, the publication under Mr...
...de Aryan...
...Congress will somehow miss waxing indignant on that score...
...He is being faced by a solid front determined to prevent any further weakening of the FEPC, and to continue to demand hearings on Railroad Discrimination...
...Memo to Mr...
...Liberals Fight McNutt to Save FEPC Special to The New Leader WASHINGTON, D. C—Negro, labor, and radical circles are conducting a lastr<iitch fight to save the Fair Employment Practices Committee from oblivion...
...That was storing up trouble for the FCC...
...And the Army high command has been currently completing plans for the retention of large sections of the war corps into augmented establishments after the war...
...For the time be:ng the A.JM-and its militant leader...
...We cannot focus our attention on abundance of food...
...You haven't seen that headline in your evening newspaper yet, but you can expect it any edition now as the vicious, high-powered Anti-Labor campaign gains momentum...
...Already the FCC is under investigation by a Congressional Committee headed by ranting Gene Cox...
...the regular broadcast bands, hurrieoHy drafted applications along with those publishers who wanted to expand an already satisfactory-air business...
...After 1918 then Major General Leslie McNair (now Lieutenant General) returned to the rank of major...
...There is only so much labor...
...The inevitable planned cooperative activity required by modern society offends their conservative minds...
...And 33 per cent of the stations are controlled by publishers (25"^- majority owned, another 6^ minority ownership...
...In Newark a Federal Judge imposed fines totaling $77,500 on nine companies charged with conspiracy to fix prices on Navy orders for cable...
...And the answer was fairly simple...
...Morris' presence in court won for him a reduction in bail...
...It is wasteful for us to produce any more food than our armed forces and heavy workers need, plus what we can ship to our needy " allies, plus the bare minimum required to keep our civilians healthy and active on a somewhat unpalatable and monotonous diet, just as it is...
...Assistance is to be aeughf fj the permanently disable* Ma those suffering from ullllW* ness, while maternity hosp»«flW**j tion and industrial acci<f*nH"^M also be covered...
...with the appearance of Norman Thomas...
...Thus...
...This growing monopoly trend in what Mr...
...After all, the change from an unplanned to a planned economy and industry does not come easy even under the incentive of winning a war...
...All commissions have been transferred for the duration...
...Only so much equipment and materials can be made available to farmers...
...We cannot contemplate the luxury of adding 30 million more acres, piling in more labor, materials, and* equipment, and increasing food production 3 or 4 times...
...Yet the pubis) knew little...
...Indeed no more crops went unharvested in 4942 than before, in /act there was less field wastage than in normal years, and the normal wastage is about 15 per cent over-all average...
...Meanwhile de Aryan has become the Washington correspondent for "The Broom" which in the past dealt in vicious anti-Semitic and anti-Democratic articles...
...The radio monopoly ease will be decided shortly by the Supreme Court...
...The United States Army is the official title of the regular peacetime military establishment...
...we're not talking about an armed force fuil of Benedict Arnolds, but simply the distinction the War emergency has created in our military organization...
...Bat the problem is more acute far another reason...
...To avoid • row with^the organized mmifenl profession, she indicated, tin* gress will not be asked to set Of a plan of health insurance...
...expert, and New Leader authority on matters out on the farm for his slant— and the following is Mr...
...the publishers' association (which collaborates with the National Association of Manufacturers—see Vol...
...Expose Hypocrisy of Anti-LaborLine Special to The New Leader DETROIT.—The 48-hour workweek is here — and strangely enough, the crowd that has been jeering at the 40-hour work-week are not too happy about it...
...of Georgia, who sits in the ghoulishly pleasant role of judge and prosecutor...
...Out of 110 FM applications pending, at least 43 showed newspaper affiliations...
...We are reduced to partial solutions of all problems and the satisfaction of relative demands, after inventories of absolute needs and possible resources...
...These are virtually government-paid ads, and ads which corrupt government by putting blindeia over the people's eyes...
...The demand for longer working hours under the guise they were necessary to increase production stands revealed as hypocritical...
...Since the onset of the national emergency the Army of the United States has been functioning...
...Underselling by sweated farm families is every bit as bad as overwork and underpay for sweated industrial workers...
...85 were controltal by uewapauefs...
...Morris Milgram, of the WDL...
...and the lightning soon struck...
...pointed out to a meeting of representatives of newspaper-owned stations that 200 of 700-odd radio stations were already in the hands of newspaper publishers...
...Kullgren...
...In the Navy, a similar distinction exists between the Regular Navy and the Naval Reserve...
...It could not see to it that each section of industry operated in conformity with broad national policy towards the attainment of socially desirable objectives—such as full employment, adequate consumer purchasing power, and balanced production...
...Is the last decade the Department of Agriculture has gradually, through acts of Congress, assumed responsibility for determining the correct priorities and allocations in the farm industry, for balancing production against consumer demand, for educating the public to accept the measures instituted, and for adjusting methods and organization to see that the measures become operative...
...Recently we saw a full line of ads...
...T. Swann Harding...
...as Oliver Pilat and Jo Ransom pointed out in an artick in the Newspaper Guild Reporter, the trouble started when FM—or Frequency Modulation— opened up a "new aerial lumrhcounter...
...Of 1,467 cities where one or more dailies were available, in 1,206 cases they were owned or controlled by one man or a single organization...
...The Regular Navy is recruited only from Annapolis and enlisted men who rise from the ranks...
...O'Dwyer, ex-Brooklyn D. A., who spotted the old gangster technique of "payoff" which defrauded the Government of millions of dollars...
...That is primary...
...that General Motors (not ths workers, but men-agemrvt) is producing the greatest tanks in the world, that Lockheed is producing the best planes in the world...
...For that is the brutal meaning of the growing press-radio monopoly which the Federal Communications Commission has been investigating over the past year...
...The editor shook his head and said: "Nope, it's agin the paper's editorial policy to print such stuff...
...Among those mentioned are "Native Nazi Purge Plot" and "Whafs Cook-in...
...Before the investigation was even voted...
...Working up the jottings he made in and out of Claude Wickard's office in Washington, he has let loose in a series of nationally-syndicated articles a blast against what he called "bungling" and "maladministration'' of the Farm Program...
...He wanted to protest the smear...
...Circulation increased from 29.000,000 lit 1922 to more than 41,000,000 in 1940, while the number of papers dropped from 2,033 to 1.877...
...Laissez-faire signally failed at peace because it refused fully to use the instruments and techniques for guiding the growth of society placed at its disposal by scientific research, as well as to foster the degree of planned cooperation modern society requires...
...Msgr...
...It was that rush which last year led to a FCC investigation of present press-radio ties...
...A flock of such biHs were being introduced in the various state legislatures...
...The bail was originally set for $5,000 and was lowered to $1,000...
...Among the crooks involved were representatives of General Electric, U. S. Steel, and Phelps-Dodge Copper...
...Dwight M. Eisenhower, who is a general in the Army of the U. S., is only a lieutenant colonel in the regular U. S. Army...
...Clippings and Comment Storm in the Air—Radio's Troubles fy DANIEL BELL A Smail-Town Story IN X-town south of the Mason-Dixon line, hut week, a onion organizer stepped into the offices Ot the cour.ty daily to see the managing ed-.tor...
...former Senator Charles Dill, the father of the Communications Act...
...This is slickly called "institutional aivertising...
...He advised them to "lean over backwards" on controversial matters...
...The remits showed the extent of infiltration: In 1931 of a total of 612 stations...
...The charges are bribery, filing false claims, and conspiracy to defraud the Army and Navy...
...And in Richmond, Va., a U. S. attorney is asking the condemnation of more than 23 miles of bandages delivered by a New York business firm...
...Press Smears Labor, Ignores Stories Of Big-Business 'Skutldaggery' Federal Trials Indict Concerns For Fraud "JOE DOAKES DESERTS ASSEMBLY LINE FOB FIVE WltfUTES TO SMOKE CIGARETTE...
...Eddie Rickenbacker will address no meeting on that subject...
...Said Randolph bitterly: "We have been placed in the position where we must fight the government because the government has been a major factor in discriminating against Negroes...
...Both of these dangerous trends ought to be stopped...
...That is unfortunate—for them...
...Accidents" like that happen, not because of Joe Doakes' nicotine-stained fingers, but because Big-Business lives only for the Almighty Dollar...
...though they sell no products to the public...
...The a* ministration felt that a with the American Medical AanV ciation might jeopardise the tire program...
...The Radio-Press Monopoly DACK in 1937...
...Seton Porter, a friend of Marshal Pe-tain...
...Food is essential...
...In June, 1941...
...Along with this growing press-radio monopoly (more than likely to be accelerated after the wet when FM stations begin to operate) has been the problem of domination of the small radio-, stations by the large networks...
...There are many like Bromfield who refuse to accept the hardships and sacrifices e n t ai 1 e d by total war against fascism...
...They are Bring mentally fat the McKinley Administration and don't know it It is a changed world, but they haven't found this out yet...
...The FCC has promulgated anti-Monopoly regulations, forcing the chains fo end certain types of contracts and to break up various types of radio combinations...
...Among the sponsors of the Hoover rally were such men as Mayor LaGuardia, John dos Pas-sos, John Haynes Holmes — but along with these liberal figures appeared the names of Mrs...
...Because FM is the coming air medium of the future—FM eliminates static and other interference—control of these channels was of strategic importance...
...Cox on the floor of the House mordantly condemned the FFC in as abusive and foul terms as had ever been heard in the Congressional chamber...
...The meeting was rounded out...
...and through every medium, we are told that Ford has erected a marvel at Willow Run...
...they want things as they were at peace, or else they buck and refuse to cooperate...
...We happen to be in total war, though...
...Cant...
...Interesting is the page eight item referring to pamphlets one can still receive by sending a set amount to Mr...
...and it snapped the hamstrings of the big-chains' restrictions over the small stations...
...Thus in the next fa* weeks we face a crisis on the question of a free marketplace of thought, ideas, and criticism in America...
...Last week U. S. Chamber of Commerce President Eric A. Johnson declared that he had advised members to "sit tight" for the time being...
...We are planning now for 1943...
...The gold-lettering on the door of the president of the small-town broadcasting company showed the same name as the publisher of the small-town daily across the street...
...In most of these cases, the morning and evening paper was owned by the same publisher...
...In his January 25th issue of "The Broom," de Aryan boasted that: "a person of national standing merely wrote a check for $50, I was released at once without further collateral or security on the part of my sponsor...
...wasteful for us to produce gadgets and other nonessentials...
...de Aryan's editorship reprinted a declaration made by the Los Angeles unit of the German-American Bund...
...At the same time provisions were made for the induction of new officers into the regular military body...
...However, she said, it will vti cover as much ground as **• originally intended...
...The Labor man trotted across the street to the'ofnee of the local radio station...
...Business, you see, was not, despite all their million-dollar propaganda, really interested in more hours foi.-production...
...In the early days tff the war...
...The net effect is this: Many papers and magazines, especially in small towns, receive a handsome subsidy from these large corporations: the companies are able to get across cltver'y their role in the War Effort...
...Irregularities were estimated at over a million and a halt-dollars...
...of 897 stations* 298 were run by publishers—a jump from 13 to 33 per cent in the regular radio channels...
...Farmers draw from the same pool of critical materials, metals, supplies, chemicals, equipment, and labor that the armed forces draw from...
...This week representatives of some 20 groups (including Walter White, of the NA'AP...
...Another weapon in this campaign is a reprint of an article on food for Europe by James Wood Johnson, former ardent Vichyite, which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post...
...F.very lay...
...At least we may hope so...
...The Negroes feel they're the stepchildren of this nation, and there isn't a single department of the government that doesn't segregate them...
...Rober Baldwin, of the ACLU...
...Hoover's campaign for food to Europe, ignoring the already setup office under former Governor Lehman, is run from two offices, one a suite of Hoover's in the Waldorf-Astoria, the other from offices in the Graybar Building run by Herbert Hoover, Jr...
...John Ryan, of Catholic groups) marched into McNutt's office for a three-hour conference...
...A Federal Grand jury in Kansas City indicted a corporation last week on charges'Trf having conspired to commit frauds in connection with war contracts at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio...
...Farm production statistics for 1942 prove that the plans made in late 1941 and early 1942 were successfully carried out...
...McNutt has to all intents and purposes put his hands on a hot potato and is now trying to drop it back into the President's plate...
...It is the duty of agriculture to satisfy our appetites in line with the newer knowledge of nutrition, and to provide certain fiber and lumber needs...
...In time, however, it is possible that even they will catch up with the human race again...
...William, Cardinal O'Connell, bulwark of the reactionary element in the church, and others . Among the speakers at the rally, though not on the program, were Miss Anne Morgan and James Wood Johnson, both of whom had entry to high Vichy circles when they were in France...
Vol. 26 • February 1943 • No. 9
